Bloodline (13 page)

Frowning, I shifted my gaze to his face, looming above me. “Are these…pews?”

“Yes, and that's an organ. There's an altar up front, and if you'll direct your attention to the wall beyond it, you'll note the giant crucifix with Jesus looking agonized and near death.”

“Cheerful image,” I muttered. He smiled very slightly and I wondered why. I was being sarcastic and unpleasant. Why would that make him smile? “We're in a church, then?” I asked, although the answer was already quite obvious to me, and he had to know it. I was killing time while waiting for my strength to return. It didn't seem to be in any hurry.

Ethan nodded. “It was the first place I found once we got clear of the forest.”

I blinked, then started to sit up as I recalled the gravity
of our situation. We'd been surrounded, or about to be, by armed assassins determined to see us both dead.

And then I blinked. “Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute.”

“What?”

I focused on Ethan's face, his eyes, and then his lips. And I felt a warmth uncurling in the pit of my stomach at the intimacy of lying there that way. So close.

No, no, I was losing focus. I'd had a point to make. “Those people in the helicopters were shooting at us.”

“Yes,” Ethan said.

“With real bullets.”

Ethan nodded. “Big ones. Big enough that if one had so much as nicked us, we would have bled out in short order.”

“So they wanted us dead.”

He nodded. “
Want
us dead. Present tense.”

I tipped my head slightly to one side. “But before that—those women, they weren't shooting at us with bullets. They were using tranquilizer darts. Why were the women shooting tranquilizers at us instead of bullets, Ethan?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure it matters.”

“Of course it matters. One bunch of attackers wants us dead, but the other intended to take us alive.”

Ethan frowned, studying my face. “That
is
puzzling.”

“Ethan, could there be more than one set of enemies after us? Can you think of anyone besides the DPI and our former keepers and the vampire assassins they've probably sent to hunt us down—anyone besides them, who might be after us?”

“No.” He didn't even have to think before answering. “There's no one else.”

“What if the Wildborns found out about us?” I asked. “Would
they
try to hunt us down?”

“Those women outside the cave were no vampires. They weren't the Chosen, either. They were just…humans. Ordinary humans.”

I lowered my head, shaking it slowly. “I don't get it.” And then I started to get up. I sat up and lowered my legs to the church floor, braced my hands on either side of my hips and went to stand up…only to discover that my legs would not support me. I sank back onto the pew where I'd been lying. It was the last one toward the rear of the church. Dizzy, I lowered my head into my hands. “God, what's wrong with me?”

“You lost a lot of blood when I cut the transmitter out of you. Between the blood loss and the debilitating power of pain over our kind, you're extremely weak. I had to carry you all the way here.”

That caused a hitch in my breathing. The knowledge that he'd carried me. Protected me. Taken care of me. No one had ever done that. I didn't remember every detail about my past, but I knew that much. And I didn't know what to say to him. The knowledge nearly overwhelmed me for a moment as I sought to understand it and to form some kind of reply. But I found none, so I changed subjects, vowing to think more on it later. “Where, exactly, is
here?
” I asked him.

“I don't really know. The outskirts of small town in the middle of nowhere, I think. We emerged on the east side of the forest, and I didn't sense any of
them
around or hear any choppers. I think your ruse with the horses might have worked.”

“Mmm. Perhaps. But for how long?” I asked. “How
long will it take them to catch up to the horses, figure out what we did and get right back on our trail again?”

“We got rid of the transmitter,” Ethan said. “How can they track us without it?”

I lowered my head. I was sitting upright, beside Ethan on the pew, but I would have far preferred lying down. “I have a feeling they'll find a way.”

“Don't worry, we've got an ace in the hole. One they don't know about.”

“We do?”

He nodded. “My brother, James. He found us once. He'll find us again. And with his help, we're going to get out of this mess.”

“And rescue the others. And shut The Farm down for good. Right, Ethan?” I watched his eyes as I awaited his answer.

“If we possibly can,” he said, “then I promise you, we will.”

“I would have preferred a simple ‘yes, or die trying,'” I told him.

He smiled a little. “You're weak. And still in pain.”

“Does it show that much?”

“I can feel it.” He sighed, looked away from me, then back again, spearing my eyes with his. “I can fix that, too.”

“Can you?” I was surprised, but also in too much discomfort to want to doubt him. My back felt as if there were a red-hot poker thrust into the base of my spine. And I was so weak that it was an effort just to hold my head up.

“Yeah, I think so. You need to…feed.”

“So you have a victim tied up and unconscious somewhere?”

He smiled again.

“Why do you smile every time I say something sarcastic?” I asked him.

His smile faded, and another look came into his face. It softened. “Because that's who you are, Lilith. And it does my heart good to see the real you coming through.”

“Oh.” I couldn't look away. “So…are there bags of blood stashed here somewhere?”

“No.” He couldn't look away, either, it seemed. His eyes never left mine, and the intensity in them grew hotter, brighter. “There's…just me.”

I felt my eyes widen. “You want me to…?”

He nodded. Then he put his hand at the back of my head, his palm cupping, fingers moving ever so slightly in my hair as he pulled me toward him, pulled my head toward his neck.

I kept my eyes open as I drew nearer. I smelled his skin, his scent, and the hunger quickened inside me. My body tensed, and my mouth literally watered for him.

“Are you sure?” I whispered, my lips grazing his skin as I spoke.

I felt him tremble. “More than sure.” And his voice was deeper, softer, than I'd ever heard it, slightly rough-edged.

I let my lips taste his skin first. Salty, good. I sucked gently, and he moaned, and I knew he was as aroused by this as I was, that he wanted it every bit as badly. I opened wider, settled my mouth over his luscious neck and bit down. My incisors sank through his tender skin easily, then popped through the jugular, then—then I tasted him. I sucked at him. I drank him into me.

With the first swallow came an explosive shock that made me go rigid, and I bit down harder. He clutched me
to him, letting his head fall to one side to give me better access, and I took advantage of it, devouring him as every sip made my hunger grow. I felt the power of his blood spreading through me, making me stronger, taking away my pain, my weakness.

Eventually he clasped my head between his hands and whispered, “Enough, baby. You don't want to drain me.”

At that moment, though, I
did.
I could think of nothing I wanted to do more. But I withdrew my fangs, lifted my head and saw his eyes glowing red with passion. I knew mine were, as well, and, being nowhere near sated, I kissed him.

He kissed me back, pushing me down until he was lying on top of me, one hand between us, tugging at the shirt I wore, shoving the jeans down my hips. He was too slow, though, so I shoved him off me and tore off my clothes. Then I yanked him to me again.

He swore as he ground his hips against mine, taking my mouth with a ferocity that set me on fire. Again he took one hand away, but this time it was his own clothing he struggled to be rid of. Soon enough it was gone and he'd dropped to his knees in front of the pew, in front of
me.

I lifted my legs to wrap them around his waist, then tightened them to pull him to me—hard. He sank into me deeply—so deeply I felt entirely possessed by him. My mouth open wide, sounds of intense pleasure issuing from the depths of me, I moved with him as he drove inside me. Deeper. Harder. Back and then in again, stabbing into the core of me, touching places that had never been touched and now—longed to be.
Had
to be.

My hands couldn't stop moving over his back, his shoulders, his neck, and he fed from my mouth as I had
from his throat—desperately, hungrily. He clutched my buttocks and jerked me harder, tipping my hips up, giving him even greater access, so that his thrusts went deeper still, and I cried out in a mixture of pleasure and pain at being so deeply probed, so widely stretched, so completely taken by him.

In that moment, I wanted nothing more….

“Oh God, yes!” I cried. “Yes, Ethan, yes!” My body coiled tighter and tighter, until I felt as if my muscles were about to tear free of my bones—and then, at his mastery, I broke free in a release that made me scream. It was an animalistic cry of pure, powerful ecstasy. And then I was left shuddering as he poured himself into me with one final, powerful thrust. He held me as he pulsed into my body, and I was certain there had never been a feeling this good. This perfect. This mind-altering.

Never.

Nor was there ever likely to be again.

He slid out of me, only to pull me from the pew onto the floor. He groped, finding our blanket, which, I realized sleepily, he had rinsed free of my blood and somehow dried. He pulled it around us and wrapped me up close to his side. My head rested on his magnificent chest, and his arms enfolded me utterly.

I pressed my lips to his skin and whispered, “I never—I
had
never—”

“I know.” He held me tighter. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes.” I lifted my head and stared up into his now-troubled eyes. “Please hurt me again?”

His smile was slow and full of mischief, but before it was complete, I was climbing on top of him, straddling him, rubbing myself over him. “Please?” I asked again.

He frowned. “We shouldn't have even once. Your back—”

“It's not bleeding.” He looked for himself as I rushed on. “Besides, it will be dawn soon, won't it?”

“Soon,” he said. “Still, I don't think—”

I didn't let him think for even a second. I slid myself over him and began bouncing up and down, and he threw his head back and closed his eyes.

“Done thinking yet?” I asked as I took him, harder and faster every second.

“Not…capable of…oh hell, yeah…right there…thought.”

I giggled. It surprised me, because I didn't recall having ever giggled up until then, and moreover, I didn't think I was the giggling type. And yet this—this melding of body to body, this taking and giving of such exquisite pleasure, this building and building toward release, this moving as one,
feeling
as one—was heady and beyond anything I had ever imagined.

I was fast approaching climax yet again, and even as I strained to take him harder, he pressed his palms to my back and pulled me forward so that my breasts were bouncing right in front of his face. Then he caught one of them in his teeth and held it there, nibbling, sucking, biting me. I whimpered in pure delicious sensation and pressed closer to that teasing mouth, only to be rewarded by more pressure, the flicking of an eager tongue, more little bites that grew harder as I got closer, and then…

I shouted his name as I exploded and my body contracted around his, milking him until he spilled into me yet again. Then I fell upon his chest in utter bliss.

We lay like that for long moments, his hands stroking
my back, right down to the small of it, only stopping before he reached my bandaged wound, then sliding upward again.

“I don't want to go find your brother. I don't want to go rescue the captives. I don't even want to try to destroy The Farm,” I whispered.

“No?” His touch was maddeningly gentle, and it just went on and on.

“No. I just want to stay here and do this. Over and over and over until I die of pleasure.”

He clasped a handful of hair at the back of my head and gave a teasing tug so I leaned back so he could stare at me, and then he pulled my face to his to kiss me just as hungrily as before. When we broke the kiss, he said, “Your wish is my command, beautiful Lilith.”

“Really? You'll do this to me until I die?”

“Or until
I
do. Can't think of a better way to go.”

Laughing, I rose just a little and turned around on top of him, straddling him again, but facing his feet, and slid down over him once again.